There are four more streets this year? So does that mean the blocks will be smaller or will the city push out further? If the latter, doesn't that mean they're expecting a MUCH bigger city this year, maybe in the 60-70k range??

It also exceeds the infrastructure capacity for the event. We're pushing it right now - there are limits to how many people can do this, from the number of staph to the capacity of the local highway infrastructure.

Sure - there *are* ways to stretch it to a bigger crowd, but it involves a dialation of the time thing, and there's only one man to burn.

Ergo the magic of the regionals - because there's not enough space to grow the original event... ya have regionals so your theoretic capacity (because of the Burner Branch Offices, AKA BBO's, AKA Regional Burns) can be in the millions.

Not bad, eh? But yeah, Size wise the Black Rock Desert is huge... but the roads leading to it, and the ability of the local community (From Gerlach to Reno to Winnemucca) to deliver and absorb more, is difficult. And a small company like the org couldn't do it, anyway - too labor intensive...

The Hosh wrote:There are four more streets this year? So does that mean the blocks will be smaller or will the city push out further? If the latter, doesn't that mean they're expecting a MUCH bigger city this year, maybe in the 60-70k range??

It's my understanding that the answer is "a little of both"...But primarily, the existing streets will be narrower. Doesn't seem like that'd create that much more real estate, though. A VISUAL WOULD HELP.
Perhaps BRC needs to grow a third "testicle", like the satellite camps for DPW and LEOs, for Raver Camp...just over them thar hills....

The roads will be the same width as in the past, 30'. Each block will be 170' deep except for the first block which will be 400'. I put together a quick drawing of this using sketchup. It's available here:

It doesn't include radial roads or center camp or the plazas. However, my calculations from this show that there is about 2 million more square feet than last year. Based on the size of last year's city it would be like adding one more block. The hope here is that people will fill in more densely.